In many cases, once the cause of the stress is removed, the sleep problem goes away as well. What you do not want to happen, is for the sleep problem to persist after the stressful event has been solved. If you are stressed, the advice is to try and calm yourself down before you go to bed. A kind of unwinding process.

There are various techniques you can use to eradicate tension. Some people find visualization helps. For others the solution might be deep breathing, or taking a herbal tea, such as chamomile. Bear in mind what works for someone else might not work for you, so be prepared to try different tactics.

Personally, I have found a combination of techniques helped me. Stress is very difficult to control, especially if it is far advanced.

Strategies you can try yourself if you are having problems getting to sleep.

1. Deep breathing. What I did was lie on my back on a bed, in a quiet room, and listen to the silence. It is not as easy as it sounds, especially if your mind is jumping around all over the place. Concentrate on breathing in and breathing out. This will help to quieten your mind.

2. Visualize yourself on a warm sunny beach. Try and recapture, in your minds eye, some idyllic moment you have enjoyed at some time in your life. Bring it to the front of your mind, and keep it there.

3. Remember today’s events in reverse order. Starting with events immediately before you came to bed, and ending with those when you woke up this morning.

4. Count sheep, starting from one, and continuing until you fall asleep.

5. As you lie in bed, try to become aware of any tension in your muscles. For me it was usually my neck muscles which tensed up at night. Make a deliberate effort to tense your muscles, then relax them, and keep them relaxed. It is surprising how unaware we can become of tension in the body.

I hope these strategies can help you to get a good nights sleep.

The main focal point of the bedroom is the bed. Have you considered that it could be keeping you awake at night? When you can’t get to sleep, you have to be prepared to do some self analysis, to try and help you understand why you cannot sleep, and the bed itself could be keeping you awake. Lets start with the condition of the mattress.

In order to keep the bed mattress at its best, it is important to turn it regularly, by following the manufacturers instructions. Some mattresses need turning over, others need to be turned from top to bottom. The reason the bed is so important is because we spend one third of our lives in it. That is a staggering thought when you think about it, and the implications are that we need to be as comfortable as we possibly can in order to get to sleep, and to sleep well. For these reasons, it is worth investing in a good bed.

When choosing a bed, it is important to try them out in the showroom first, by lying on the mattress. That is the only way you will be able to tell if the bed is going to be right for you or not. Another important tip is to make sure the bed is long enough for you as well. Check the physical dimensions of the bed before you buy. You do not want to spend the first night in your new bed only to find out it is not long enough for you.

If your mattress is over ten years old, you might want to think about changing it, as this is about the maximum life of a mattress. You can sometimes tell just by looking at a mattress, whether it needs changing or not.

Some signs which indicate the mattress might need changing are:

1. Does the mattress look even. That means are there any humps or hollows which should not be there.

2. Can you feel any springs or ridges when you lie on the bed.

3. Do you hear any creaks from the mattress when you first get into bed.

4. Do you wake up with any aches or pains.

The best advice when choosing a new bed is to try as many mattresses as you can and talk to the sales staff and ask for their suggestions. We did this with our new bed, and it is surprising how helpful knowledgeable staff can be.

The bed itself is often the first place to look for the reasons you ask why I can’t sleep.

It is important to remember that there are lots of reasons why we cannot sleep at night, of which a restless mind is but one. It might be because you cannot stop replaying in your mind, the row you had with a colleague earlier at work today, or that argument you had with a driver about his rudeness on the road. There are countless incidents like this which, given the chance, will try and replay in our minds at night, and so deprive us of that precious sleep.

It is easy to say, you should not let these incidents get the better of you. They are often trivial when we come to think about them afterwards, and when the emotional heat has cooled down. But that is no consolation, because they do matter to us at the time.

So one cause of failing to get a good night’s sleep is allowing the mind to get cluttered with these trivial incidents. Learning to cope them, does help you to stay calm during the day, and more importantly in this discussion, helps you to get a better sleep at night.

I know from my own experience, that this is true. My temperament was quite volatile for a time, and I didn’t sleep so well because I was recalling trivial incidents which happened to me during the day, when I should have forgotten about them long ago. I wish I had been able to do just that, and I know I would have been able to get to sleep faster as a result.

So what this is coming round to, is this. Put on the mindset which prepares you for any hurts you might encounter in your day to day activities, and when they do happen, let them go straight away. Do not hold on to them, that only does you harm, and might stop you falling to sleep as quickly as you otherwise would.

It takes practice to control a restless mind, but it can be done. How to get a good night’s sleep is achievable by all of us.

The secret of getting to sleep faster is trying to analyse what you think is stopping you from falling asleep. For example, there might be a noise you can hear at night. You might be too hot or too cold in bed. Either or both of these will either stop you from sleeping, or interrupt your sleep pattern.

The obvious solution in this context is to remove the cause of whatever is keeping you awake at night. I know you cannot stop a noise which has its origin somewhere outside, but you can take some steps to reduce if not eliminate the problem. You could close a window, to reduce noise, or move to another bedroom, if you have one.

Coping with how hot or cold you feel in bed is easier to put right. On the same subject, remember, you are less likely to get hot in bed if you feel slightly cold after first getting into bed.

Suitable bedding is important. A good solution is an all weather quilt. Because it is made up of two quilts, which can be separated, you simply adjust them according to the room temperature.

Would you believe that scent or smell can help you fall asleep quickly? Lavender is said to help you relax, because the smell of lavender can change your mood. Try it and see if it works for you. I don’t admit to going out of my way looking for lavender smells, but it is quite pleasant to the nostrils. It might be a case of believing it will help you fall asleep quickly, and because you believe it to be true, it might work as a self-fulfilling prophesy.

These are just some of the ways to fall asleep quickly.

The first thing is to ensure the bedroom is not too hot. It is better if the temperature in the bedroom is cool before you get into bed. Once you are in bed, then open a window, and leave it open all night, so that you get a supply of fresh air while you are asleep. This is what I do and it works for me. It is surprising how hot you can become whilst asleep, and having a window open all night helps to stop this from happening.

Find a comfortable position to sleep in and keep to that position. For me, my preferred position is to sleep on my left side. Others might sleep on their backs, with the head slightly raised.

As far as it is within your control, try and keep background noise to a minimum. That means turning radios and televisions off before getting into bed. The other side of this is that listening to relaxing music whilst in bed, on low volume, can actually help you to become more relaxed, and is therefore more likely to help you be able to drop off to sleep quickly.

I experimented with this for a while, until I discovered you have to set the radio to switch off after a period of time, otherwise the noise will eventually wake you up when you don’t want it to.

If your mind is racing, and does not want to quieten down, here are some tips to help you deal with it:

1. Try slowing down your breathing, and as you do so, concentrate on each breath. Tell yourself that you are becoming more relaxed and are falling asleep.

2. Visualization is a powerful psychological tool which we can all use to our advantage. Imagine you are somewhere nice, such as on a quiet, sunny and warm beach. Use your senses to experience the smells and sounds around you. It might be a location known to you, or it might be fantasy.

3. Count sheep. This is an old sleep remedy, but they say the old ones are the best. I have tried it, and had some success with it. The key is to persevere with the counting. You can count the sheep, or anything else you choose, either forwards, or backwards.

4. When you first get into bed, consciously relax all your muscles, starting from the head and working your way down to the toes. First tense the muscles, then relax them. This is good for relaxing the mind as well.

5. Lastly, try rolling your eyes up three times, because this is what happens naturally when you are asleep.

These are just some ideas you can try for yourself, in answer to the question, how to go to sleep quickly.

Sleep Remedies is about ways of getting to sleep as quickly as possible,and is based mainly on what works for the population at large. These natural sleep remedies, and tips for better sleep, might  work for you too. The purpose of this site is to give you ideas for getting a good nights sleep. There might be something here you that perhaps you had not thought of, or which you consider might be worth trying, or is maybe a new idea,  and which just might help you solve your sleep problem as well.

This is not a site for people who have persistent sleep problems, which might need medical advice. Rather it is for those who have the occasional difficulty falling asleep as quickly as they would expect.

The emphasis here is on natural sleep remedies. You won’t find any reference to drug related sleep remedies.

The purpose of this website is to give you, the reader ideas to help you get a good night’s sleep. The author is not medically qualified, nevertheless, the intention is to provide informed opinion, which might help some of you sleep better at night.

I have included a video showing some top tips to help you to fall asleep faster

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Give yourself the best chance of falling asleep quickly by making adequate preparation before going to bed. The goal here is to associate bed with sleep. You go to bed to sleep, and the objective is to be asleep within a quarter of an hour of switching the bedroom light out. Why fifteen minutes? Because that is the time most good sleepers take to get to sleep.
Some suggestions for preparation for bed are:

1. Try to wind down mentally before going bed. If you have had a stressful day, take the time to unwind by listening to some relaxing music, for example. You are trying to put yourself in the right mood to fall asleep soon after you get into bed and switch the light out.

2. If you are still awake after fifteen minutes, get out of bed and have a warm milky drink, read a book, or listen to music, and then try again when you feel sleepy. You are ready for bed when you feel yourself nodding off.

3. Avoid drinking tea or coffee for at least four hours before you go to bed. The caffeine in theses beverages is a stimulant and as such, will keep you awake at night. Be aware that many products contain caffeine, and it is advisable to check the food labels before consuming any of these products near to your bedtime. Examples of these are, cocoa, chocolate bars and some medicines. All have this constituent in them.

4. Avoid smoking cigarettes in the evening, as they contain nicotine which is a stimulant. Try not to smoke during the night either.

5. Some people think alcohol makes them fall asleep fast. While it is true that it will probably get you to sleep early on in the night, as the night goes on it will likely cause you to wake up feeling thirsty, and needing the toilet as well. Alcohol is best avoided for at least four hours before going to bed.

6. Give your stomach time to digest your food properly before you try to go to sleep. Going to bed and expecting to be able to sleep on a full stomach is unrealistic. Sometimes eating late is unavoidable. If that is the case, it is best to eat only a light meal if it is close to your normal bedtime.

7. Exercise. Staying fit and healthy is important, not least in helping you get a good night’s sleep. If you are able to exercise, then it is best to take it late afternoon or early evening. Any later than that and it can keep you awake when you want to go to sleep. This is because exercise wakes up the nervous system.

I hope that these tips to fall asleep fast help you to get a good night’s sleep.